Week of November 17-21

Dear Parents,

We hope that you survived the frigid temperatures this week! It was great to meet with so many of you for conferences throughout week. It is always fun to be able to tell you all of the great things that your kids are doing!  Thank you for all of the support you give your child as well as us teachers, we really appreciate it.  We hope that your child enjoyed their day off on Friday!  It is hard to believe that we have this week and then it is Thanksgiving week already!

This week we will focus on...

F.A.S.T.(Phonics)- We will begin concept 11, the R family.  In this concept, students will learn that er, ir, ur, ar, and or  all belong in the same family and say the /er/ sound.  However, ar and or are rowdy teenagers who like to do their own thing most the time.  ar says /ar/ as in "car," and or says /or/ as in "for."  Students should study spelling list 11 for this week.

Math: In 2nd grade math, we will wrap up Unit 4 with the test on Wednesday.  We will begin Unit 5 on Thursday and participate in "rich math tasks" on Friday.  3rd grade will continue Unit 4, learning about multiplication and division.  **Please continue to practice the STANDout math facts with your child.  They are given 2 minutes and 15 seconds to complete the fact sheet.**

Reading:
In class, we will learn about viewing and reading to learn and wonder.  In these lessons, students will learn to use text and images to understand the story, think and wonder about new learning, realize that misconceptions are normal, and that all learners revise their thinking after reading and listening to additional information.

For reading homework, we will continue working on mastering basic story elements.

Wordly Wise: We will introduce and do activities with the words from lesson 6.  For extra support, check out http://wordlywise3000.com.

Writing: We will continue to work on expository writing (writing to explain why).  The students this week will write to the prompt, "What is your favorite family tradition? Explain why it is your favorite."

Social Studies: We will wrap up our unit on "How communities change," this week with a test on Wednesday.  We will move onto a unit discovering "How communities are diverse."

FOSS: FOSS teachers will continue to teach their current units to our classes.